How to Ask a Question

What is a good question? And, how do we teach students to work at writing good questions? In my feminist and queer theories class, a core course in the Gender and Women’s Studies curriculum that I’ve been teaching for quite a few years now, students each have to develop discussion questions about an essay or work they will be presenting to the class. Borrowing an exercise from one of my own mentors, Linda Hutcheon at the University of Toronto, during the first or second week of the semester I have students write discussion questions out and hand them in to me. I then respond to their questions with feedback about how to make their question one that will provoke an even deeper engagement with the assigned text both on their part, and on the part of the class. I’ve named the handout “some notes on how to ask a good question about theory that will provoke conversation and further discussion from your colleagues” and I attach it to the back of most of my syllabi…